The other evening I turned on the air conditioner in my bedroom. I decreased the temperature by one degree and I increased the wind speed for the perfect sleeping conditions. Then I really looked at the air conditioner remote control.
I realized that I could read every character that was on it and I understood the meaning.
Wow.
Red letter day.
I remember when I first learned the character for “on” – 开； then I remember when I learned “off” – 关. That was during the first four week intensive Chinese course I took in December of 2007. I don’t remember where the rest of the characters came from – sometime in the last four years they joined the ever lengthening list in my brain. I only know that when I moved into this apartment nearly four years ago the only button I was sure of was the on/off one.
I have typically had my mandarin milestones in the fall – October time period, but this year it came a bit early. Maybe some day I will be fluent in Chinese.
Had any milestones with a language lately or do you remember a major milestone in the past? I really consider Chinese three different languages, listening/speaking, reading and writing. This was a big step for me in the middle category.
Congrats! That’s big!
Thanks! Sometimes you have to look back and see the progress instead of looking ahead to see how far there is to go.
Congrats!
Thanks – it was a pretty big thing (though in a small package)